Changing Channels

Television and the Struggle for Power in Russia

Ellen Mickiewicz

Mickiewicz had unparalleled access to the people and personalities involved--not a dispassionate volume, this is the real goods direct from the source

OUP will have the support of the Markle Foundation in publicity, advertising, and promotion

Look for a higher-than-usual profile on this volume thanks to the combination of Markle support and Mickiewicz's own fantastic contacts and ties

The first volume to tell the story of the great changes in Russia through the lens of the omnipresent (and often considered omniscient) force of television

Goes right through the present

Changing Channels

Television and the Struggle for Power in Russia

Ellen Mickiewicz

Description

At 7:20 pm on October 3, 1993, a nervous and shaky anchor broke into coverage of a soccer match to tell Russian viewers that their state television was shutting down. In the opening salvos of the parliamentary revolt against Boris Yeltsin's government, a mob had besieged the station's headquarters. A man had just been killed in front of the news director. Moments later, screens all across Russia went blank, leaving audiences in the dark. But in less than an hour, Russia's second state channel went on the air. Millions watched as Sergei Torchinsky anchored thirteen straight hours of coverage, often with the sound of shooting clearly audible in the background. Streams of politicians, trade union leaders, writers, television personalities, and other well-known figures
braved gunfire to reach Channel Two's makeshift studios and speak directly to the nation. In one stunning moment, a famous actress extemporaneously pleaded with viewers not to return to the horrors of Stalinism. Boris Yeltsin, who had been glued to his television set like everyone else, later recalled, "For the rest of my life I will remember the anxious but resolute and courageous expression of Liya Akhedzhakova. . . her hoarse, cracking voice remains in my memory." In that time of crisis, television bound the nation together, a continuing emblem of legitimate authority which lent an image of stability and credibility to Yeltsin's besieged government. "Television saved Russia," the Russian president said. Changing Channels vividly recreates this exciting time, as television both
helped and hindered the Russian nation's struggle to create a new democracy. From the moribund, state-controlled television broadcasts at the end of the Soviet Union, through Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost, up to Yeltsin's victory in the most recent Russian presidential elections of 1996, Mickiewicz charts the omnipresent role of television, drawing on interviews, public opinion surveys, research, and the television programming itself. Analyzing the rise of political advertising (sometimes with controversial US participation), the birth of journalists as opinionated television personalities, and the changing news coverage of coups, elections, and wars, she shows both how the gradual development of private, independent stations has begun to make real pluralism possible and how the
authoritarian legacy of the Soviet state structure continues to affect Russian television even today. With television in 97% of all Russian households, and the nightly news watched by a viewership matching that for the Super Bowl in the US, the struggle for control over television became the struggle for control over the nation. Mickiewicz illuminates the efforts of those both in and out of power to control the media. Behind the momentous political changes are the stories of the men and women who chose to resist, test, or submit to the system. Mickiewicz offers brilliant sketches of these individuals: Yegor Ligachev, Gorbachev's second in command, a man of strongly held opinions who, in retirement, still orated loudly, even over tea; Boris Yeltsin, having not even put on his shirt
yet, watching the early morning coverage of the attempted coup against Gorbachev; or the new breed of Russian journalists covering the war in Chechnya with footage of bombed out streets and charred corpses for privately owned NTV, despite continuing government intimidation. In vivid interviews, all the key players, including Gorbachev himself, offered Mickiewicz their unique insights and frank personal commentary. Drawing on these interviews and on her extensive research on the interactions of politics, economics, and society, Mickiewicz presents a rich and authoritative analysis of television in Russia. In many ways, Mickiewicz writes, no other country in the world offers television a greater opportunity and a greater role. Changing Channels tells the fascinating story of a truly modern
phenomenon: the struggle to create genuine political pluralism, helped and hindered by the barrage of information, advertisements, and media-created personalities that make up modern television.

Changing Channels

Television and the Struggle for Power in Russia

Ellen Mickiewicz

Author Information

Ellen Mickiewicz is the James R. Shepley Professor of Public Policy Studies and Director of the De Witt Wallace Center for Communications and Journalism at Duke University. Her many books include the award-winning Split Signals: Television and Politics in the Soviet Union (1988) and Media and the Russian Republic (1981). She was the first American to be honored by the Journalists Union of Russia for her contribution to democratic media in the region.

Changing Channels

Television and the Struggle for Power in Russia

Ellen Mickiewicz

Reviews and Awards

"For those who care about Russia's stormy evolution from dictatorship to democracy, here is an important story--the first extensive account of the crucially important revolution in Moscow television since 1985. From first-hand interviews with key figures, Ellen Mickiewicz has pieced together the inside story of repeated confrontations between Gorbachev, Yeltsin and the late Soviet leaders, and the daring correspondents, producers and anchors who dared to defy the Kremlin at such pivotal moments as the break-away of the Baltics, the August 1991 coup, the storming of Moscow TV in 1993, and the war in Chechnya. With encyclopedic detail, Michiewicz shows how the development of democracy in Russian has depended on the end of censorship and will continue to depend on a new
spirit of political independence among Moscow's now-multiple TV networks. --Hedrick Smith, author, The New Russians

"From the days when Leonid Brezhnev clung to power through the tumult of Mikhail Gorbachev and the election victories of Boris Yeltsin, Russian leaders have struggled over the control of television. In this fine and penetrating book, Ellen Mickiewicz traces those struggles and examines the larger question still ahead: whether a free and independent television can emerge that will bolster prospects for a stable, democratic nation. No one else has better captured this important saga."--David Gergen, Editor at Large, U.S. News & World Report

"This book will enthrall and enlighten its readers with its vivid revelations of political stratagems by politicians and journalists and its clear analysis of the implications for Russia specifically and, more generally, for television's roles and problems when authoritarian regimes move towards democracy. This is a definitive study, based on lengthy interviews with the movers and shakers in the world of politics and television by a brilliant participant/observer of the momentous changes-in-the-making."--Doris A. Graber, Professor of Political Science, The University of Illinois at Chicago.

"Ellen Mickiewicz's No Illusions is a prescient look into the minds -- and hearts -- of Russia's future leaders. The chance to hear the frank voices of these Russians on the path to power cannot have come at a more critical moment for the West. The book is a gift to those who want to know what is looming in an emergent and complex Russia." --Alex S. Jones, Director of the Shorenstein Center on the Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School